Thief 1/2 & SShock 2: DDFix and Enhanced Resolution Patch - discussion

Simplex on 8/4/2008 at 07:18

I would like to confirm hiatus' and biker's findings: that custom res (1280x960) does not work in the newest version of DDFix. The game is reverting back to software 640x480x8bit.

bikerdude on 8/4/2008 at 07:21

Hey TS

You should be proud of what you have accomplished, hence the "behold ddfix" bit :cheeky: Put it this way I use both obmm and ddfix, I could not play either Oblivion or Thief today without them...!!!

Any idea on the custome resolution issue..?

biker

ps. your ddfix info page has a few typo's :cool:

Simplex on 8/4/2008 at 07:28

That would be "typos" ;)

I allowed myself to correct the typos I noticed. Timeslip feel free to use that version:

Quote:

With each new graphics driver release from nVidia and AMD, more and more old games are breaking. The Dark Engine games (i.e. Thief 1, Thief 2 and System Shock 2) have long been a victim; Thief 2 first lost its stars, had issues with fogging and then lost all colour detail in shadows. On DX10 hardware from both nVidia and AMD, it appears to be rendered in 8 bit colour due to removed dithering support, and since the 169.xx driver revision it has become completely unplayable. nVidia or AMD are utterly uninterested in spending manpower on fixing older games, so it seems it's fallen to me to get thief looking like its old self again. The current list of fixes include:

* Worked around broken dithering by forcing rendering to a 32 bit render target
* Fixed the issue with missing star textures
* Removed the resolution switching between the game and menus
* Fixed the texture corruption and crashes caused by nVidia ForceWare drivers newer than 169.xx
* Fixed the issue with multi core processors
* Fixed the issue with the video codec becoming unregistered
* Adds options to use a higher bit depth z-buffer and to disable the windows key

This patch is mainly designed to support Thief 2, and when used with the standard v1.18 exe some additional features are available.

* Fixes any issues with the driver incorrectly reporting free VRAM
* Adds a 32 bit texture loader, to allow the use of 32 bit textures instead of the usual 8 bit paletted images
* Adds the option to use fullscreen resolutions that are normally unsupported by Thief, such as 1280x960

Requires windows 2000 or above, and a graphics card that supports 32 bit render targets. The GUI requires .NET 2.0 or a recent version of mono. Using the patch without the GUI requires the use of a hex editor, or using a prepatched exe. Copy protected versions of the games cannot be patched automatically, and will require downloading a prepatched exe.

Timeslip on 8/4/2008 at 07:41

Quote Posted by Simplex

I would like to confirm hiatus' and biker's findings: that custom res (1280x960) does not work in the newest version of DDFix. The game is reverting back to software 640x480x8bit.

Are you sure it's the newest version? I uploaded a new one about an hour ago that should have fixed the custom resolution problem.

Simplex on 8/4/2008 at 07:50

I downloaded ddfix yesterday evening, and wrote about it today. So I guess it is no longer applicable. Sorry for the confusion and thanks for quickly fixing the problem :)

Hiatus on 8/4/2008 at 09:04

just tested .9b and custom res problem is fixed for me - thanks for acting so quickly upon it, Timeslip :thumb:!

still got the issue described in EDIT 2 & 3 of previous post (game sets RR to 75Hz instead of desire/expected 85 in some cases). Using dxdiag.exe last tab and override to 85 has no effect :(. Timeslip, is it intentional and do you have any idea why sometimes games starts in 75 and sometimes in 85, depending on desktop resolution seemingly (shouldn't it be independednt of desktop res/RR?)

but adding custom/forced RR in future ddfix ver. should solve it anyway, I hope..

and frame rate limiter (in addition to custom/forced RR) would be great to have as an option (off by default), even though it would have negative side effects as you explained.
Like this: RR=100Hz and MaxFPS=60 in any res in game (if H/W can take it).

Timeslip on 8/4/2008 at 09:13

Quote Posted by Hiatus

still got the issue described in EDIT 2 & 3 of previous post (game sets RR to 75Hz instead of desire/expected 85 in some cases). Using dxdiag.exe last tab and override to 85 has no effect :(. Timeslip, is it intentional and do you have any idea why sometimes games starts in 75 and sometimes in 85, depending on desktop resolution seemingly (shouldn't it be independednt of desktop res/RR?)

ddfix doesn't interfere in the refresh rate setting. TMA uses a refresh rate of 0, which leaves the choice completely in the hands of the graphics driver, so no idea why it would have changed since 1.3.5. :confused:

Hiatus on 8/4/2008 at 09:36

hmm... so it's probably some stupid thing ATI driver does.

still would be grateful if someone with Nvidia card + CRT could test it if it behaves the same for them.

ps as I said I'm not entirely sure I was fine in 1.3.5 so maybe it was like that from the start (since you implemented this feature in 1.3.4). Will try 1152x864 now.

EDIT: 1152x864 behaves the same...

Simplex on 8/4/2008 at 09:53

I am at work now, so I cannot check it now, but has anyone tried running thief in widescreen (16:10) - resultions such as 1280x800, 1440x900, 1680x1050...? - I am curious if it works, and if it does, if the picture is distorted (improper FOV) or not. It would be really cool to play thief in widescreen :)

Timeslip on 8/4/2008 at 10:24

Quote Posted by Simplex

No. It works, but the FOV seems to be incorrect. ((http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/8597/shot1tn3.jpg) screenshot)

That's something that could be correctable in the future, if I find the code that calculates the projection matrix. (*misses DX9, where I could just intercept the D3DXMatrixProjectionFovLH call.*)